The development of a protoplanetary disk from its natal envelope

Dan M. Watson (), C. J. Bohac, C. Hull, William J. Forrest, E. Furlan, J. Najita, Nuria Calvet, Paola d’Alessio, Lee Hartmann, B. Sargent, Joel D. Green, Kyoung Hee Kim and J. R. Houck
Additional contact information
Dan M. Watson: University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627-0171, USA
C. J. Bohac: University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627-0171, USA
C. Hull: University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627-0171, USA
William J. Forrest: University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627-0171, USA
E. Furlan: NASA Astrobiology Institute
J. Najita: NOAO, Tucson, Arizona 85719, USA
Nuria Calvet: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA
Paola d’Alessio: Centro de Radioastronomía y Astrofísica, UNAM, 58089 Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico
Lee Hartmann: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA
B. Sargent: University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627-0171, USA
Joel D. Green: University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627-0171, USA
Kyoung Hee Kim: University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627-0171, USA
J. R. Houck: Center for Radiophysics and Space Research, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA

Nature, 2007, vol. 448, issue 7157, 1026-1028

Abstract: Think inside the envelope The accretion by a protoplanetary disk of material from its surrounding natal envelope has been observed for the first time in the Class 0 protostar NGC 1333–IRAS 4B. This is a crucial early step in the formation of stars and planetary systems, through which all such systems are thought to go. Observations with the Spitzer Space Telescope reveal a rich emission-line mid-infrared spectrum from water vapour, which indicates an origin in an extremely dense disk surface, heated by a shock from the infalling envelope material. Once a protoplanetary disk has formed, planetesimals are thought to develop as the products of collisions between dust grains form ever larger objects. But current theories fail at the point where metre-sized boulders are formed: theory has them falling into the central protostar too quickly to form kilometre-sized planetesimals. New computer simulations suggest that the interaction of the gas disk with the boulders creates extremely dense regions. There the boulders are so close to each other that their mutual gravity draws them together into solid objects of many kilometres in size, forming directly the planetesimals that serve as building blocks of planets.

Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature06087 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:448:y:2007:i:7157:d:10.1038_nature06087

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature06087

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().